The alarm on Milan’s phone goes off at 5:45am. She rolls over and smacks the phone with the palm of her hand. It keeps beeping. Irritated, she blinks one eye open and points with her middle finger pressing into the cracked screen of her phone. The alarm stops. She sighs. Her head falls to the pillow staring up into the morning darkness.

With her head sunken into the down pillow, she realizes that she didn’t remember cracking her phone. She puts it on her list of to do’s to get fixed.

She gets out of bed and looks over at the sleeping mound of shadows next to her. She breathes deeply like a gong resonating in her chest. Even after all these years, she still loves looking at him. Could use his help more often she thought but still loves him.

Making her way to the bathroom, she shuts the door behind her before flicking on the light. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her pink satin nightgown matching her silk bonnet. She inspects her face, lifting up the neckline unsure of how that will fall. Eventually it’ll age but not today. For that she was very thankful. Another day with a faithful husband. Tomorrow will sort itself out.

She turns on the water and grabs her toothbrush. She wets it, throws some toothpaste on it and shoves it into her mouth. Water drops onto the marble countertops. She studies herself as she brushes tilting her head in different angles. She stops.

Her brush dangles between her second and third bicuspid stuck between clenched jaws.

There’s a mark peaking out from underneath the bonnet. She yanks the toothbrush out of her mouth, drops it on the counter and spits.

Her forefinger and middle press onto the deep cut peaking out from underneath the silk stitching. She pushes it up and up and off.

Her curls tumble up and out like a slinky meeting gravity. She yanks her hair apart tracing the deep cut kept joined together by dried blood. She traces it from her temple to the top. It stops at the back of her head. Jaggedly like it was made with a blunt object.

Michael’s alarm goes off in the bedroom. He shuts it off.

Worried about her new discovery, she calls out to him through the closed door, “Honey”

Silence

She let’s go of her Vice-like grip on her hair. The hat relaxes into place. She calls again, “honey”

Nothing

She runs a bit of water onto her fingertips and wipes off the toothpaste residue from the sides of her mouth. She looks at herself one last time and opens the door. It slides into the wall. She looks up and Michael stands on the other side.

“Oh honey, why didn’t you answer me when I called and where’s your mustache? Did you shave it in the middle of the night?”

“Who the hell are you”

She blinks, “huh?”

Michael’s voice becomes alarmed as he gets over his shock, “How the fuck you get in and whatcha doin in my wife’s clothes”

“Wha? whayou talkin bout? I’m your wife”

She points to her self with her thumb.

A small voice calls from pallet in the darkness, “ma-ma”

Milan steps to the side of Michael making her way toward the sound of her child. Michael grabs her arm. Hard. She looks up into his eyes from the light in the bathroom. It’s vacant

Michael calls over his shoulder, “stay there, mommy’s not here. Go find bubba and stay there.”

His voice gets louder as he calls for help, “Jacob! Jacob! Get up! We have an intruder! I’m calling the police”

Michael pulls out his phone with his other hand

“Intruder? Where? Michael what’s happening?”

Milan tries to twist her arm out of Michael’s tight grip so she can protect her child.

Pain shoots up her arm and into her chest as her hand goes behind her back and up. Hard.

She cries out, “Ow! You’re hurting me! Michael let me go! Bella come to mommy”

“No, Bella stay there”

Her forehead becomes hot and her feet cold. He shakes her whole body with his one armed grip and yells, “how’d you get here!”

“Dark Mommy”

Milan’s head spins. She smiles sweetly into the darkness “ok sweetie, let mommy turn the light on”

“That’s not what she meant”

Milan’s breathe catches. Her lungs don’t expand. She hears the operator on the line, “what’s your emergency”

“Yes I’d like to report an intruder. The address is 336 West Faithrock Hill”

She doesn’t hear the rest. Her body feels like liquid. Just milk in a ziplock bag. You never know if it’ll leak out onto the floor. The second alarm on her phone goes off letting her know to get the babies up. It keeps going. And going

Footsteps like clown shoes on a stick come down the hallway. The door opens and the light switches on. Milan’s left eye winces. A gangly 12 year old boy stands in the doorway of her bedroom.

“Dad! Who’s that? Bella come here”

Jacob crouches and opens his arms for Bella to escape the loud grown ups. Her little two year old feet barely holding her chubby body upright as she runs from the pallet on the floor next to the big bed and into her brother’s arms. His lengthy arms enfold her and allow her head to disappear into his band shirt.

Michael drags Milan out of the room, across the hall and tumbles her down the stairs. Milan lands on her bum with her legs splayed up the stairs. She tries to use her free hand to cover herself as Jacob looks down the stairs following at a safe distance. Michael drags her to the foyer. He’s still on the phone with the operator. The woman on the other end asks alarmed, “sir, does she have a gun?”

Michael looks into the phone like the operator asked a stupid question. She knows the reaction all too well. She’s seen him use the reaction many times before. This is the first time he has used it towards her. She feels small inside. Alien. She feels like the pictures on the wall. She recognizes the design and furniture but the pictures and wallpaper are not apart of her. Pastel instead of jewel tone. Silver instead of gold. So much plantation wicker. Inside. She shakes her head.

Michael readjusts his grip twisting her shoulder up and above her collarbone line.

“She’s a stalker! She knows the names of my children and she’s wearing my wife’s nightgown. And I don’t know where my wife is. Get her out of my house!”

Cop lights flash in the windows. Milan looks back at Jacob who’s halfway down the stairs with Bella still in his hands. She reaches her hand out pleading with her teenage son who looks just like his father, “Jacob, please, I don’t know what’s going on. What did I do? Help me sweetie”

Jacob holds Bella tighter and leans back on his heels. He whispers, “Who are you?”

Milan and Jacob stare at each other before Milan’s head finally falls to her chest in defeat. A picture frame catches her eye on the foyer table. Simple picture set up front and center for the whole world to see upon first entering the home. A Madonna and child sitting together in a loving pose. The mother looking so much like Bella that it would be unmistakable to assume it was anyone other than her mother.

But the woman sitting with Bella is not Milan.

Milan throws up.

Michael curses and cries into the phone, “she’s drunk too!”

Michael opens the door to five cops. The lead cop asks Milan a flurry of questions, all of which she can’t answer. The lead cop flashes her light into Milan’s eyes. She speaks to Milan in an authoritative way that does not ask for a response. The lead cop nods her head to her colleagues. They cuff Milan and duck her head into the back of the charger. She looks straight ahead with her shoulders bare and her right foot missing a house shoe. She notices that the front left bush surrounding the drive is taller than the others. She makes a mental note to have it trimmed.

Milan’s body moves forward and then back as the car takes off to the station. Two cops stay behind gathering statements.

As the junior cop fervently jots down Michael’s statement, a gentle middle aged man with salt and pepper hair and kind eyes bends down eye level with Bella. She sits on Jacob’s lap curling her brothers hoodie cords around her palm.

The man removes his hat and offers his own pal for her to place hers in it. He tentatively wraps his larger hand around hers.

Bella looks at the gentle man and then points to dining room window facing the street. Spit drips from her bottom lips as she says

“Mama”